CNETAnalysis: After what seemed like an eternity waiting for iTunes 11 to finally arrive, on Thursday Apple finally released the latest version of its popular music tuner. Featuring a slew of new changes and upgrades like iCloud and Facebook integration and a sleeker user interface, iTunes 11 is being billed as completely redesigned and newly remodeled. Not all of the updates are cosmetic though, as Apple has included some new functionality to make iTunes 11 even easier to use. Case in point, the all-new ability to photograph an iTunes gift card in order to redeem the code. Picture this Instead of having to type in cumbersome 16-digit codes typically found on the back of iTunes gift cards, users who’ve upgraded to iTunes 11 will be able to use the computer’s camera to snap a picture of the code. Once that’s done, the card is redeemed, and the money is transferred to the person’s iTunes account. The 16-digit code can still be manually typed in, and depending on what type of gift card is being used, the code may have to be input manually. As of right now, iTunes 11 photo recognition requires the user to have an iTunes gift card with the code encased in a rectangular box for easier identification. Unfortunately, this new trick hasn’t made the jump to iOS just yet, but it’s certainly within reason to expect Apple to introduce the feature down the line.
